Arrival

I left Portland, Maine’s international “jetport” and flew to JFK on a bumpy little commuter flight. From there, I worked my way over to the international departures gate, and got ready to board a long flight across the Atlantic, destination Paris. While I was excited at the prospect of being in Paris again, if only in the airport, I’ll admit that while waiting in JFK I got a bit nervous about the whole “moving to Beirut” thing. It suddenly seemed pretty far away. However, once I boarded the plane and got comfy, things started looking up. I had my inflatable neck pillow (thanks, Karen!), my bag of snacks that my mom packed for me (thanks, mom!), and my favorite blue shawl that doubles as a blanket on long flights (thanks, Jeff!), so I was all set. At Charles de Gaulle, I found my way to the line of folks bound for very exotic-sounding places: Tangier, Casablanca, and yes, Beirut. I felt proud and excited that I was in that line, and not the more pedestrian-sounding gates to Berlin and Brussels and the like.

As the plane descended towards the Rafiq Hariri international airport in Beirut, I saw mountains giving way to sea, with the occasional palm tree here and there. The city appeared to be a warren of tall tan-colored buildings, and I wondered where among them I would be.

After the man from AUB (the American University of Beirut) Human Resources got me through immigration, I climbed into the cab that the university had arranged for me. The cab driver, Ragi, was a good sport about hefting my two huge suitcases, overstuffed backpack, and carry-ons into the trunk. As I looked around the city for the first time, two things immediately caught my attention. First was the many policemen milling about in grayish urban camouflage outfits, complete with floppy berets and carrying big rifles. The second was the gigantic three-dimensional KFC bucket announcing the presence of the Colonial’s fried chicken inside the airport. It was my first taste of the surreal grafting of western capitalism onto the cultural landscape of the Middle East.